


Shadows in the Hallway

by morningstar115



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ambiguity, Case Fic, Confusing, Dreamlike, Haunting, Non-Linear Narrative, Possession, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 18:35:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18078821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morningstar115/pseuds/morningstar115
Summary: Often ghosts don't know how to ask for help. Usually there's no one listening, anyway.And when there is, how can a ghost explain what it never really understood?





	Shadows in the Hallway

**Author's Note:**

> First Supernatural fanfic, set at some indeterminate point and somewhat based off of a creepy dream I had a while ago about my grandparents' house.

The hallway seems to go on forever, lined with massive doorway after massive doorway and curving in a horseshoe-shape that inevitably leads back to the front room.

He doesn’t want to go back to that room.

* * *

“ _What do you think? Run-of-the-mill haunting?”_

“ _Looks like. We're close. Why not check it out?”_

* * *

The carpet is prickly against his bare feet and is the same color as the green mold along the walls. It lines the stairs as well, the stairs that stretch up to the second-floor rooms, all of which are filled to the brim with mismatched furniture and dusty boxes and none of which feel safe.

They’re always so cold, too.

* * *

“ _Okay, that’s a lot of teenagers going into short-lived comas and waking up all shaky and terrified of their entire family. How was this missed?”_

“ _Maybe the victims were so scared that they tried to keep it quiet. After all, there’s only been two deaths in over a hundred years, and both of them were in the last twelve months.”_

_"And neither of the dead ones were ever in a coma at all. Huh. More than one ghost?"_

_"Maybe."_

* * *

He never remembers falling asleep or dreaming, but it must happen. Every time he finds himself waking up in the blue corner room, on the narrow bed with the gray blanket heavy enough to trap him yet never thick enough to keep him warm, the cold drives him down the stairs. The world seems to tip as he takes the first few steps, and he clings to railing all the way down, every time. There’s a map on the wall, a map of the world drawn in fading ink, with faces like those of monsters stare out vividly from their perches on the map’s corners, eyes bulging as he passed by, trying not to look.

At least the downstairs hallway is flat, even if it does go on forever in a circle.

* * *

“ _Any luck?”_

“ _Not really. You?”_

“ _Nope. Small towns, man. People always clam up and act creepier than the damn ghosts.”_

* * *

There are books on the shelves that line the walls, heavy, dark books that he occasionally wants to read but never does. He’s not sure they’d even come off the shelves.

He wanders the hallway, beginning by the base of the staircase by the one door to the front room, then traversing the entire curve to the other door to the front room, then back again. Sometimes he sits by one of the empty bottom bookshelves and pushes around the misshapen little bits of wood and stone and other materials that he pretends are people, happy people talking and dancing and building houses made of dust.

If he hears someone approaching, footsteps muffled by the sour-smelling carpet yet rattling the floor beneath, he crawls into the shelf, crushing the dust-villages and willing the good darkness to encroach and hide him until whoever it is has passed by.

* * *

“ _When will people stop buying houses that are obvious candidates for freaking Halloween attractions?”_

“ _I don’t know; maybe when most people realize that haunted houses are really a thing.”_

* * *

The Old Woman sits on her rocking chair that creaks just a tiny bit and rocks back and forth endlessly, in the purple room with the shades that turn her wrinkled skin maroon.

The door is never shut, and he always sees her even when he doesn’t want to look. The Old Woman never sees him.

The Old Man is always in the kitchen, humming like a drowning bee while cleaning or cooking something that smells burned. The room is decorated in tidy black and white, but the light is always red.

He always sees the Old Man, too, and sometimes the Old Man will give him a toothless smile as he walks past and hands him a glass of water or tea that he can’t taste. But he never sees or eats the burned food.

The Pretty Girl sits in the room with all the elegant dishes and little statues locked in behind ceiling-high glass cabinets. She sits on the floor in front of the cabinets, surrounded by all her dolls; there’s too many to count, or so it seems.

Sometimes he sees her cradling them and smiling, smoothing their shiny hair and lacy clothes. Sometimes he sees her scowling, tears trickling down her hollow cheeks from shadowed eyes as she cuts the hair and clothes into bits and strips with a pair of silver scissors.

Skinny Boy is upstairs, and throws a ball at the wall and catches it over and over and over again.

He never gets Skinny Boy to meet his eyes.

* * *

“ _Wow. That’s...that’s nasty. Like, really, really nasty.”_

“ _No wonder the locals wanted to keep this quiet for generations. We've probably seen worse, but...that’s just...It’s just sick.”_

“ _Yeah, well, it’s like I always say. Humans can be the worst.”_

* * *

 

Sometimes he has to go to the front room. He finds himself there, curled up on a slippery black sofa, with Pretty Girl sitting in a stuffed chair too big for her, and the Woman, not the Old Woman, sitting next to the Faceless Man. The Woman moves around a lot, organizing objects he can’t quite see and looking at him and Pretty Girl in ways that make them feel small enough to crush under the Woman’s heel. Faceless Man just sits and reads a paper with scribbles instead of words.

There’s a baby in a crib, and sometimes the Woman will pick it up for a minute or two before putting it back down. The baby never cries; it just breathes. Its breaths is usually the only sound in the room.

He thinks the breaths sound pained.

* * *

 

“ _Sam? Can you hear me? Sam? Sammy!”_

* * *

 

He wakes up cold. He goes downstairs. He wanders the hallway and plays with the objects he pretends are people. Then he goes to the front room because he has to, and sits until Faceless Man sets down the paper.

He eventually realizes that whenever this happens, he doesn’t remember anything until he wakes up again in the corner room. After he realizes this, he soon forgets it until the next time it connects somewhere in his mind.

* * *

_He tries to shout as the misty figure draws nearer, but his words get tangled in his throat as he fumbles for his gun. The flashlight goes out._

_It’s so cold._

* * *

There’s a basement that he never goes into, and there’s lots of windows he can’t see out of.

Old Woman rocks. Old Man hums. Pretty Girl hugs and hurts her dolls. Skinny Boy throws his ball. Woman glares. Faceless Man reads. The baby breathes.

He wanders. Sometimes he’ll stop at the top of the horseshoe shape and open the door to the stairs that lead downward. He’ll stare into the darkness until he has to go back to the stiff, slippy couch in the front room with all the icy looks and painful breathing.

* * *

“ _Get the hell out of him or I’ll shoot, you son of a bitch!”_

_This body’s too big, and too clumsy, or maybe not clumsy enough._

_He’s scared._

* * *

Old Woman’s creaking chair and Old Man’s humming are gone. Pretty Girl is sobbing somewhere in the distant upstairs. Woman is screaming. Skinny Boy is a stain of flesh-color and red on the white carpet of the front room. The baby is crying.

He tries to get up, wanting to help the baby, but the glossy black leather keeps making him slip back on the sofa. Faceless Man is there, dark and looming and growing taller and taller until the bad darkness covers everything else. Then he wakes up.

This has happened before.

* * *

 

_He’d fight it, but it’s a damn child and he hesitates for one moment too long._

* * *

He forgets. It happens again. He remembers. He forgets.

Every time he remembers, he gets angrier than the time before. But being angry is bad, isn't it?

One day, the creaking and humming stops, the sobbing and screaming and baby’s wails begin again, and the little not-people on the dusty bottom shelf slide into focus. And then he realizes.

They’re just tiny rocks and wood chips and bits of garbage and half-rotten teeth.

He doesn’t have to go to the front room and become trapped in the sofa again. He doesn’t have to watch Faceless Man turn into bad darkness and cover everything.

He runs. He hears footsteps following him, but the good darkness protect him all the way to the basement stairs.

* * *

_Splintering wood and stone. Salt and pungent gasoline. Smoke._

_Finally._

* * *

He rips the door open, feeling it melt away from his hands, or maybe it's the other way around. He throws himself forward. He falls.

* * *

_Days, months, years of trying to explain. It’s all in shadow._

_But it’s getting light now._

* * *

Someone is shaking him, shouting. The grass is cold and wet underneath him. He opens his eyes, squinting against the light and the pounding in his head.

The whole damn house is on fire.

“Sam? Sammy?”

Rolling over, away from the leaping flames, Sam squints at the face hovering above him. “Dean?”

His brother lets out a heavy sigh of relief. “Thank...well, thank _something_ , I guess.”

“What happened?” Sam asks as he pushes himself into a sitting position.

Dean starts going on about unfriendly ghosts fighting their demise and possession and creepy basements and bones bundled up in old unlabeled boxes, yet Sam’s attention is drawn back to the burning building. He could swear that he sees a small figure standing in front of it, wavering in the smoke.

“Sam, hey, you good?”

“Yeah,” he says, but he’s listening for something else, and then he hears it.

_Thank you._


End file.
